Worshippers attend a Holy Hour service Aug. 29 at St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral in Metuchen, N.J. to pray for victims of clergy sexual abuse. (CNS/Michael Ehrmann)
by Brittany Wilmes
Engagement Editor
While we love reflecting back on a year of hard work and sharing our favorite stories (see editor Gail DeGeorge's year in review blog post), we also find it useful to turn to your example to see what stories resonated in 2018.
Here are the top 10 stories on GSR in the past year, ranked in order of time spent on the page. It's no surprise that coverage of the clergy sex abuse crisis dominates the list. Readers spent a total of 276 days reading our top reporting and columns on church reform, clericalism and soul-searching in the wake of the latest fallout surrounding sexual abuse in and by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
Ahead of the midterms, readers also dove into our coverage of the Nuns on the Bus, spending nearly as much time reading the opening story as the average American spends watching TV each year.
1. Amid abuse crisis, sisters call for healing, changes to church structure
2. Is new life ahead in the church?
3. Bishop out on bail, priest’s death unnerve Indian nuns who protested publicly
4. Reckoning: White sisters respond to their own racism, to one historian’s call for justice
5. The clerical church in search of its soul
7. Young women ask difficult questions to challenge church at recent Joan Chittister institute
8. Nebraska move to deny sisters Medicaid could imperil retirement funds
9. With a route mapped to Mar-a-Lago, Nuns on the Bus will hit the road again
10. Q & A with Sr. Patricia Ann Fox, facing deportation from the Philippines
[Brittany Wilmes is engagement editor for GSR and NCR. Her email address is bwilmes@ncronline.org.]